Officials: Bomb threats against US voting locations coming from Russia

WASHINGTON — A series of Election Day bomb threats sent to polling locations across the United States appears to be coming from Russia, according to new assessments from federal and state officials.

The initial bomb threats early Tuesday put a temporary stop to voting at some locations in parts of the southeastern state of Georgia. State officials quickly determined the threats were not credible.

"We identified the source, and it was from Russia," Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger told reporters.

"They're up to mischief, and it seems they don't want us to have a smooth, fair and accurate election," Raffensperger said. "They think if they can get us to fight amongst ourselves, they can count that as a victory."

Only the effort to disrupt the U.S. election appears to be much broader.

The FBI Tuesday said it is "aware of bomb threats to polling locations in several states," adding that many of the threats "appear to originate from Russian email domains."

A U.S. official confirmed to VOA that in addition to Georgia, bomb threats were sent to polling locations in the Midwestern swing states of Michigan and Wisconsin.

"None of the threats have been determined to be credible thus far," the FBI said. "We will continue to work closely with our state and local law enforcement partners to respond to any threats to our elections and to protect our communities as Americans exercise their right to vote."

The suspected Russian ploy builds on other last-minute attempts to disrupt the U.S. election.

Earlier Tuesday, as many U.S. voters prepared to cast their ballots, the FBI warned voters of at least two efforts to use the bureau's name and likeness to promote false narratives.

In one case, FBI officials pointed to faked news clips urging Americans to "vote remotely" because of the increased threats of a terror attack. In the other, the FBI cautioned that social media accounts were spreading video of a fabricated news release about five prisons across the country involved in a vote-rigging scheme.

The bureau said both videos are "not authentic."

The FBI did not say who was responsible for creating the videos, which began to circulate just three days after two other fraudulent videos purporting to be from the FBI began circulating on social media.

The earlier videos falsely stated the bureau had apprehended three linked groups for ballot fraud and made false claims about the husband of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris.

In recent days, U.S. intelligence officials have assigned responsibility for other videos, not referencing the FBI but claiming to show voting irregularities to Russian influence actors.

Russia has denied any involvement.

The latest incidents are part of what some U.S. officials have described as a "firehose of disinformation" and follow a warning from U.S. intelligence agencies late Monday that Russia, and to a lesser extent Iran, were likely to intensify their influence operations on Election Day and in the days and weeks that follow.

"Influence actors linked to Russia in particular are manufacturing videos and creating fake articles to undermine the legitimacy of the election, instill fear in voters regarding the election process, and suggest Americans are using violence against each other due to political preferences," according to the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, in coordination with the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

"We anticipate Russian actors will release additional manufactured content with these themes through election day and in the days and weeks after polls close," the CISA statement said. "These efforts risk inciting violence, including against election officials."

But CISA, which helps oversee the security of U.S. election infrastructure, said Tuesday the election was running as smoothly as could be expected.

"At this point, we are not currently tracking any national level significant incidents impacting security of our election infrastructure," CISA Senior Adviser Cait Conley said during a briefing with reporters.

Conley said earlier that CISA has been tracking some disruptions related to weather and other issues such as equipment failures, describing them as "really routine and, honestly, expected types of disruptions."

CISA officials have warned that informational websites and infrastructure related to the election could be targeted by ransomware or distributed denial-of-service attacks. But they have emphasized that while inconvenient, such attacks would have little impact on the ability of Americans to cast ballots, since none of the country's election systems are connected to the internet and because 97% of voting precincts have paper backups.

Still, there are concerns U.S. adversaries may try to seize upon any disruptions to incite panic and even violence.

"We know our foreign adversaries see this window of time, both Election Day and the days immediately following, as an opportunity to stoke further division and undermine American confidence in our democratic institutions," Conley said. "And that is regardless of who wins."

Common Cause, a nonpartisan watchdog and advocacy organization that has election observers stationed across the country, said Monday there has been tension at some polling places.

"We're seeing instances of folks being yelled out at the polls," Suzanne Almeida, the group's director of state operations, said during a call with reporters.